


A Quiet, Once Spread

by SapphoIsBurning



Category: Green Men Series - K. J. Charles, Simon Feximal Series - K. J. Charles
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-18 01:09:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16985256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SapphoIsBurning/pseuds/SapphoIsBurning
Summary: Robert and Simon receive a visitor, which is a problem, because no one's even supposed to know they're alive.





	A Quiet, Once Spread

**Author's Note:**

  * For [couldaughter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/couldaughter/gifts).



“How are they?” Jo asked the void. They shuffled the deck of cards, gently riffling them. They shuffled again, then cut, then drew off the top of the deck.

“Uncle Simon.” The Knight of Cups. Jo squinted at the red fish decorating the figure’s tunic, the horse lifting one foreleg, and the pyramids and palm trees distant in the background. 

“Uncle Robert.” The six of cups, children exchanging goblets full of white flowers, quaint, warm, innocent, playing in the front garden of an old house.

“Aunt Theo.” The Empress. “Hmm.” The feminine figure reclined on a red couch, wearing a gown bedecked with pomegranates. Fertility? Jo thought. Maybe love, maybe home.

***

The cottage was warm and filled with the smell of slightly burned pastry. Simon wasn’t home from his walk along the coast. It was good to be able to leave each other’s side, since they had retired. Their living arrangements gave them all a degree of precious protection.

Robert flipped the page of the ladies’ magazine he got the recipe from and frowned. He was becoming accustomed to keeping his own house once again, but the intricacies of bakery escaped him. It all seemed ritualistic—he thought about consulting Miss Kay, but he laughed out loud at that and put it out of his mind. Instead, he opened a hefty tome and paged carefully to the section on frangipane. 

***

Simon gazed off into the distance. He was mostly accustomed to seeing migrating shorebirds, but he thought he saw a figure. He closed his hand tighter around his walking stick.

A dove fluttered up out of the grass to his left and landed in the branches of an olive tree. It provided a momentary distraction such that Simon nearly tripped over something that had washed up on the strand. He stumbled and then caught himself.

It was a bottle, corked and sealed, with something inside it. Not liquid, but a scroll of paper.

Simon reached down to retrieve it.

“Mr. Feximal! Mr. Feximal, I presume?”

With a start, Simon snapped up as fast as his creaky joints would let him. 

***

The scent of almonds almost covered the burning smell by the time Simon got home.

“Well it’s not what Cornelia used to make, but it’s something, and I—” Robert froze when he heard two voices: Simon’s mellifluous tones and someone much younger.

The door to the cottage opened. “Robert,” Simon said through gritted teeth. “I’ve brought home a visitor.”

“Did he swim here?” Robert asked.

“Robert Caldwell, wow, it is an honor,” a young man with a strong American accent said, striding past Simon and extending his hand. Robert took it, skeptically. “I’ve looked everywhere for you.”

“I don’t believe we’ve met,” Robert said. “Excuse me, my Bakewell.” He turned and fled back to the kitchen.

The young man followed. “My name is Jones, and I’m an archaeologist.”

“Another one,” Robert sighed.

“He seems to be a much better sailor,” Simon said. “He was able to navigate here from the mainland.” He peered into the kitchen and gave Robert a significant look.

“Your published works make me sure you are the only one who can help me research the Fisher King,” Jones said.

“Really,” Robert replied. He sank into an armchair. The magic that allowed them to safely retire and escape the rest of the world was supposed to keep visitors away, but apparently it didn’t work on Americans.

The young man went on. “Of course it was my father’s great quest in life, and I thought I didn’t give any care to it, but the recent events in England have motivated me to take a stronger interest. Have you been contacted by anyone claiming to be a Green Man?”

Simon and Robert exchanged a blank look.

“You must know about this,” the man insisted. “I’ve gone to such efforts to find you.”

“Sir, please keep your voice down, you might wake our associate.”

“Associate? Are there more of you here? How many occultists might I find on a remote Mediterranean island? Is Karswell hiding back there somewhere too?”

“Certainly not,” Simon spat.

There was a thud from upstairs, the movement of feet, and a slamming of a door.”

“Now you’ve certainly woken her,” Robert said.

Theodosia spent more than twenty hours of the day in a combination of sleep, astral travel, meditation, and what she refused to admit was catatonia. She came down the stairs wrapped in a regal dressing gown and a knit shawl, puffed up to her full height, and mightily displeased.

“We do not take visitors on this island, Henry,” she said.

“How do you know my name,” the young man stammered.

“Mr. Jones, maybe you should come back tomorrow. It is the sabbath,” Robert suggested, taking the young man’s arm. “We would be happy to sit and chat about our many adventures, but it must be tomorrow.”

“I don’t know what the winds will be like then,” Mr. Jones said.

“They’ll be fair enough,” Simon said bluntly.

***

Eventually they were able to escort their unexpected guest to the door, and out of it, and back to his boat, and off into the distance where he could no longer be seen. 

“We can’t stay here,” Simon said. He started pacing around the cottage, tracing sigils with his finger on window panes, smearing them away with his hand and idly retracing them.

“If they know we’re in the Mediterranean and that you two are a bit more than ghosts, then we have to be somewhere else.” Theodosia crossed her arms. “What’s the point of living on a moving island if people can sail a yacht here! I told you we should have gotten sharks.”

“But where will we go?” Robert said. “The Mediterranean coast has been so good to us. Can’t we just...oh bother. What is that?”

“I don’t know.” Simon broke the wax seal on the bottle and uncorked it. He pulled a string to fish out a rolled piece of paper. He opened it to find a message in a familiar hand:

“Expect a visitor soon. And come see me in the Hebrides. -J”

Simon read the message out loud.

“It’s awfully cold there, what about your joints?”

“I’ll build us a fire,” Simon said. “And we can go somewhere else come winter. Maybe somewhere farther.”

“With no yacht borne archeologists,” Robert said.

Theodosia shrugged, pulled her shawl tighter, and turned to go back up the stairs. “Warn me before you complete the ritual,” she said.

“Can we eat first?” Robert asked. “I did work fairly hard on this.” He gestured toward the pastry with the pink and white surface, and felt the metal cartouche pull against the skin of his hand.

“Of course,” Simon said, pulling him into an embrace. “What’s the point of retirement without indulgence?”

They stayed up late into the night eating burned tart and finding all the right books and incantations to hide their island from the rest of the world more thoroughly this time. They barely felt the motion as it unclasped its roots and began its journey northward.

***

Jo looked at the Empress again. “Home and family,” they thought. “Maybe they got my letter. Maybe they are on their way.”


End file.
